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LORD PALMERSTON 



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THE TREATY OF WASHINGTON 



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LORD PALMERSTON, <fcc. 

Immediately on the publication in England, of the Treaty of Washiiig. 
ton, and the correspondence accompanying it, articles complaining of the 
Treaty, as a surrender of British rights and honor, made (heir appearance 
in the London Morning Chronicle. 

The style of these articles, and the great knowledge and ability which they 
evinced, at once suggested the belief, that they were written by Lord Pal- 
merston. Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, under Lord Melbourne's ad- 
ministration ; and it is now well understood that his Lordship was their au- 
thor. 

It has been thought it might be useful to collect the more important of 
those articles, with extracts from others, and to print them in pamphlet foroi.^^ 



From the London Morning Chronicle^ Septemhei' 19, 1S42 

The first thing that strikes us on looking at the treaty just concluded It 
Lord Ashburton is its unusual form. It embraces three matters, which are 
separate and distinct; namely, boundary arrangements, slave trade arrange- 
ments, and mutual sui render of criminals Hying from justice, each of whicij 
would naturally have formed the subject of separate conventions. This pe- 
culiarity it is important to bear in mind in considering the treaty in detail ;, 
for it will materially assist us to form a correct estimate of the motives of ihe - 
negotiating parties. 

There can be little doubt that the three subjects were negotiated as i* 
whole^ and that the two Governments had an understanding tlmt they were 
all either to be taken or rejected together. As the ratifying power in the 
United States rests with the Senate, a body which has nothing (o do with 
the negotiation — and not with the President, who has the conduct of jfie 
negotiation, it was thought that (if these three matters were made the eub 
ject of three separate treaties) the Senate might refuse to ratify some one of 
the three, and thus the intentions of the negotiating parties might be defes;!- 
ed. Now, had each of these matters been made the subject of a separaCsr 
negotiation, which of them was likely to be rejected? To answer this f|oe3 = 
lion we must inquire which was the least advantageous to the United Stikles> 
cr the least in accordance with public opinion ; and we think we shall hawe • 
no difficulty in showing that there was so little chance of any one of tliese- 
conventions being rejected by the Senate, that their being imbodied io es^e 
treaty could only have resulted from a design to blind and mystify the Brii- 
ish negotiator. The manosuvre of including the dn-ee subjects in one treelj 
deluded Lord Ashburton into the belief that the President and Mr. Websie* 
were really of opinion that it contained something advantageous to Grem^i 



Britain wliich ihe Senate mig-ht possibly reject, if sent in a separate form. 

First, then, was it probable that the Senate would have rejected the boun- 
dary arrangement? It will be enough for us to show that that [arrangement 
is higlrly advantageous to the United States, or rather to those States whicli 
are contiguous to the border — for (and in considering the general question, 
it is important to bear this in mind) to the other States of the Union it was 
a jjiatter of no importance. 

It is stipulated by the treaty of Ghent that the questions arising out of the 
interpretation of the treaty of 1783, as to the boundary, should be referred 
10 the decision of a friendly Sovereign. In 1828, the King of the Nether- 
lands was fixed upon, and the two Governments sent him their respective 
statements of their respective cases. In January, 1831, the King of the 
JNetherlands communicated to the two parties his decision on the three 
questions submitted to him. The three questions were : Isl, which is 
the head of the Connecticut river intended by the treaty of 1783? 2dly, 
How the 45th parallel of north latitude, which is to be part of the boun- 
dary line, is to be ascertained, whether by astronomical observation or 
by geometric measurement? 3d, Which is the northwest angle of Nova 
tScotia as mentioned in the treaty? The King of the Netherlands " de- 
cided " the two first questions, and decided (hem in conformity with the 
English view. Upon the other question, however, he declared it was 
impossible to make any decision which should be in conformity with 
the words of the treaty and with the features of (he country, as those 
Jeatures were then understood to be ; and therefore as he felt it out of his 
his power to declare how the boundary should run, in strict conformity witli 
the treaty, he recommended a conventional line, whicli would give upwards 
of two-thirds of the disputed territory to the United States, but would reserve 
to us a narrow corner of it to shorten the road, which, if the whole were 
given to the United States, would be long and difficult between Canada and 
Nova Scotia. 

The English Government of that day felt (hat the proposed line would 
be disadvantageous to England, but thought that on (he whole, and consid- 
ering th« obscurity which then enveloped the right of the case and the doubt 
which might reasonably be entertained, whether another reference of the 
same statement to another power would lead to any more satisfactory result, 
determined to signify its readiness to accept the decision of the King of the 
Netherlands on the two points which he /<arf decided, and his recommenda- 
tion on the point which he declared himself unable to decide. It should be 
borne in mind, however, that the King of the Netherlands, though he said he 
could not decide which was the north-west angle of Nova Scotia, did inci- 
dentally decide the river question, which was the foundation of the argu- 
ment of each party, and he decided (hat question in our favor. The ques- 
tion was whether rivers flowing into the Bay of Fundy are rivers tlowing 
into the Atlantic. The British Government said they were not., and the 
King of the Netherlands said so too ; and the whole question in dispute 
turns upon this fundamental point. 

The American Senate declined to adopt the recommendation of the King- 
of the Netherlands about a conventional line, because they said until the line 
described by the treaty of 1783 was determined, the United States had a 
right to assume that their interpretation was the just one ; that if their interpre- 
tation was the just one, the whole of the disputed territory belongs to them ; 
-and; if that be the case, then the Senate has no power, without authority 



from Maine, to alienate pail of (he Maine territory by agreeing to the 
recommendation of the King of the Netherlands. With regard to the two. 
points which he had decided, the Senate refused to be bound by his deci- 
sion, because it was incomplete, inasmuch as it embraced two points only 
and omitted the third. 

Lord Grey's Government continued to press the United States for nearly 
two years to agree to the King of the Netherland's line, but at last declared 
that that line having been thus refused, England was no longer bound by hei' 
offer to take it, and would never thenceforward agree to any line so disadvan- 
*tageous to her. 

It was then proposed by the British Government to divide the territory 
into two parts, making the St. John the boundary line throughout. This, 
also, the Americans declined. The British Government then sent over a 
commission of survey to prepare materials for a further reference, which was 
the only way in which the United States Government said the matter could 
be settled unless England was prepared to give up the whole. The result 
of the commission has been to prove, by actual observation and survey, that 
tiie features of the country along the line claimed by us agree entirely with 
the words of the treaty of 1783 ; and that the features of the country along' 
the line claimed by the Americans do not agree with the words of that 
treaty. 

These surveys, (hen, placed England in a condition totally dillerent from 
that in which she stood when the reference was made to (he King of the 
Netherlands, and when his decision and recommendation were made and 
were agreed to by us. We had collected evidence which must have satis- 
fied any impartial authority that the geographical point, namely, the north- 
west angle of Nova Scotia, which the King of the Netherlands said could 
not be ascertained, was capable of being fully ascertained. And this point 
was near the spot where we asserted it to be ; so that it is diliicultto suppose 
that any impartial judge could have done otherwise than determine the 
whole question in our favor. 

But then it may be said that even if we were convinced of this, and if 
sucha judge could be found, time would be consuHied in the reference, and 
new questions of dispute and fresh irritation would have arisen, pending 
that reference. Admitted ; and the conclusion is, that some sacrifice of ex- 
treme right might have been worth making for the sake of an early aeltle- 
ment. 

Now, what were the points which chiefly concerned us in this matter ? 
As to so many square miles of territory, more or less, that does not signify a 
2ig ; we have land enough in Nova Scotia and Canada for all the settlers we 
are likely to send out for a long time to come. As to the limber on those 
square miles, it certainly is so much money's worth ; but money saved is 
money got ; and if we can save the value of that timber by increased secu- 
rity for peace, the sacrifice is only apparent, and, in reality, we may be 
losing nothing, in point of money value. There are supposed, moreover, to be 
valuable coal mines under part of the territory to the south of the St. John, nmy 
ceded to the United States, and coal mines would be of great value politi- 
cally and commercially to the United States, but still it would not perhaps 
be worth continuing a dispute merely for the sake of keeping out of theii 
hands those future and contingent means of rivalship or of hostility. But 
two or three things are of great importance to us, as long as we think our 
North American colonies worth retaining ; and as long as we intend to incui 
the expense of fighting for them if attacked. 



6 

The first is a convenient, short, and secure road of communication be- 
tween Nova Scotia and Canada. This we do not secure by the present ar- 
rangement. The road now in use runs along- the southern bank of the St. 
John, from about the Great Falls to a point near the Fish river or the 
St. Francis, That southern bank is ceded to the State of Maine, and we 
must make so far a new road ; but from the St. Francis to Ciuebec the road 
runs along a narrow strip of territory, l)Ounded, according to this treaty, by 
the St. Lawrence to the north, and by the American frontier to the south. It 
will be seen by the map how exceedingly narrow this is, and the Americans 
would be entitled to establish at all times military stations upon these ex- 
treme points. They would always be ready to cut off our communication 
by post whenever it might suit their purposes or the state of our relations 
with them that they might do so. In fact, in war our communication by 
post along the strip of land now left us would be so insecure as to be impos- 
sible ; while, in peace, if we send our own messengers our communications 
are safe, even through the heart of the territory of any foreign power. It is 
only for war we want to provide, and the present arrangement does not 
do that. 

Secondly, for the security of intercourse between our provinces, and to 
prevent the manifold evils produced by the interference of American sympa- 
thisers, we require to have some territory about Quebec and about the St. 
Lawrence, and a broad band of connexion between Nova Scotia and Canada. 
The line of the St. John would have given us this, if to that line had been 
added a portion of the southern bank, including the Madawaska settlement, 
which lies between the Great Falls and the mouth of the Fish river. 

But the fair arrangement as a compromise would have been, that England 
should have retained the valley of the St. John and all the north of it ; and 
{hat we should have ceded to the United States the valley of the Allegash, 
containing a great quantity of fine timber, convertible into immediate value 
by them. The line of the present treaty brings the people of Maine within 
a few miles both of the St. Lawrence and of Quebec ; it gives them means 
of interrupting our communications; of encoiuaging our soldiers to desert; 
and of threatening the heart of our provinces in the event of a war. In short, 
nobody can deny that it is a wretchedly bad arrangement of the boimdary 
dispute. 

But then, was it necessary ? Were the Americans likely to go to war with 
us on this point? or were we likely to be engaged in a war in Europe, so 
that it became necessar}- to make any sacrifice for peace elsewhere, in order 
to be ready for war here ? Neither. No country was ever less prepared oi 
less inclined for aggressive war than the United States and there never 
was less likelihood of a war in Europe. See the feeling with which the 
treaty has been received in America ; mark the enthusiasm it has excited. 
What does this mean ? Why, either that the Americans have gained a great 
diplomatic victory over us, or that they have escaped a great danger, as they 
felt it, of having to maintain their claim by war. Either supposition is ad- 
verse to our treaty ; because, taking the last supposition, and assuming that 
their extacy arises from feeling that they have got rid of a source of quarrel, 
the meaning is, that, conscious of their utter inability, in their present bank- 
rupt state, to enforce their claim by war, they are delighted at being relieved 
from the danger of finding themselves compelled by their own weakness to 
relinquish unjust pretensions, if those pretensions had been steadily resisted ; 



and they are enraptmed at having gained by diplomatic skill that which they 
never could have got by force of arms. 

As to the boundary now agreed upon, it is extremely and needlessly dis- 
advantageous to England ; it gives up a large tract of land, and an immense 
mass of valuable timber, which have hitherto been in our possession and cus- 
tody, and which w^e might still have retained in our possession and custody 
as long as we pleased ; for the people of Maine could not have wrested theni 
from us, and never would have attempted it if we were determined to resist 
them. Nor would the rest of the Union have incurred all the evils of a war 
with England to support the people of Maine in an attack upon the disputed 
territory, which attack would have been a violation of the fundamental arti- 
cles of the American constitution, which forbid any separate state from making 
peace or war, or levying troops, or doing things which affect the internal re- 
lations of the general body. We could have had no difficulty, by a slight 
exercise of firmness, in keeping possession of the whole territory, pending a 
bona fide reference to arbitration, but if we had chosen to abandon the dis- 
trict to the south of the St. John, with the exception of the Madawaska set- 
tlement, or rather if we had chosen to cede to the United States the valley 
of the AUegash, nothing in the world woidd have been easier than to have 
kept possession of everything north of the St. John ; and all that we have 
ceded to the United States north of the St. John, is needless, gratuitous, and 
imbecile surrender. It seems an act of absolute infatuation ; not that the 
territory thus ceded has any particular value as land, but it was invaluable as 
a nonconductor, interposed between the Americans and the British setde- 
ments. 

Then, again, by ceding to the United States every thing south of the St. 
John, we hand over to the State of Maine the chief part of the Madawaska 
settlement, which lies to the south of the river, between the falls and the 
mouth of the Fish River. Now these setders are chiefly French Canadians, 
devotedly attached to English authority, because by origin, language, habits, 
and religion, they are entirely uncongenial with the people of the United 
States. These Madawasca settlers have repeatedly addressed the Crown not 
to abandon them to the United States. 

But, then, it seems that it was not enough for the present Government to 
agree to cede to America nearly three-fourths of the territory to the whole of 
which we had, at least, made out oiu' claim ; it was not enough to give up 
to our tmbulent neighbours of Maine a district between the St. John and the 
St. Lawrence and Quebec, which can be of no possible value to them ex- 
cept as a means of annoyance to us ; it was not enough to hand over to the 
Americans the settlers of Madawaska, British subjects attached to British do- 
minion, and demanding the protection of the British Crown; but in addi- 
tion to all this we have been compelled to purchase the remainiag fourth of 
oitr own property, by granting to the people of Maine a right to navigate 
the St. John through our territory and down to the sea, and to do this on the 
same footing as British subjects. 

By this concession we have virtually acknowledged the American claim ta 
the whole of the disputed territory, and we have done this in the face of re- 
cently-collected proofs, conclusively establishing our right to the whole. 
Upon this concession our contemporary the Times well observes — 

" This concession (for a mere concession it is, though the article carries a 
sound of reciprocity) may have been necessary, but we confess we look upon 
it with a suspicious eye. ' With every anxiety to give our neighbour every 



8 

cenvenicnce of transit through our country, we confess we do not much hke 
his having a ' right of way.' We are happy to see him, happy to serve hun, 
happy to bow him in and bow him out ; but we hke to have the power to 
]ock the door in cases of emergency. Ten thousand circumstances may 
arise which may render it highly necessary that we should have the right of 
excluding him and his goods from this free passage. In those unsettled 
times which precede hostilities, we should little like to see the hardy and 
daring population of Maine sweeping down the river to St. John's, past the 
principal towns of New Brunswick, as a matter of right. In matters of fiscal 
policy it may well furnish ground of dispute hereafter whether Custom- 
house regulations which the Government of New Brunswick may find it 
wise or necessary to impose are or are not ' inconsistent with the terms of the 
treaty' which guarantees to Maine ' free access into and through tlie said 
river and its said tributaries, to and from the sea port at its mouth.' It is 
not, we repeat, that we would close this channel of comni^nication and 
trade to the neighbouring agriculturists. Far from it; we are too well 
aware of the advantages which a country derives from a current of trade 
through its territory. We only suspect the wisdom of tying our own Lands, 
and earnestly hope that the turbulent inhabitants of Maine may give us no 
jeason to regret that we have done so." 

Those remarks are perfectly just and true, but the objection which, they 
put forward applies to the boundary line also. The objection is, that the ar- 
rangement about the navigation of the St. John will tend to increase the 
chances of war, because, in times when the two countries are upon bad 
terms, and when any small cause of irritation may tend to bring on a quarrel, 
the right of way thus granted to the people of Maine through our territory wil 
multiply beyond measure the chances of collision, and will afford to the Ameri- 
cans means of annoyance, and the temptation to employ those means. The 
same objection applies etjually to allowing the people of Maine to have any 
territory" north of the St. John; nothing ought to have induced us to let 
them cross that river at any part of its course, and we ought to have liad the 
the whole of the valley in which it runs. It is highly objectionable to grant 
to people of another country rights to be exercised within our own territory. 
This is exemplified by the perpetual disputes which we have had with the 
Fietich and the Ameiicans in consequence of the right of fishing and of 
curing fish on the coasts of Newfowndland and Labrador, which was cori- 
ceded to them by the treaty of 1783, and by preceding treaties. There is 
nothing so likely to lead to quarrels as these interferences of the people of 
one country with those of another, in virtue of conceded rights. And it may 
safely be affirmed of the whole of this boundary arrangement, that under 
the semblance of removing causes of dispute, it lays the foundation for inev- 
itable quarrels. 



September 20, 1842. 

From what we have said upon the first part of Lord Ashburton's treaty, it 
is evident that if the boundary arrangement had been sent up to the Senate 
in a separate convention, there could not have been the slightest ground for 
apprehending its rejection. 

Let us, then, turn to the second part of the treaty, that respecting the sum 



pression of the slave trade. It is probable that the Senate would have re- 
fused to ratify this? Why should they ? It grants no right of search. It 
establishes no principle to which the Americans can object, or even have 
objected. On the contrary, it formally recognises separate and individual ac- 
tion in regard to the suppression of the slave trade, and so far is an adinis- 
sion of the doctrines which the Americans have contended for. This article 
IS, in fact, a mere delusion. In the first place, it is a formal abandonment by 
England of all attempt to persuade the United States to join the rest of Chris- 
tendom in a treaty for the suppression of the slave trade, and thus at once 
proclaims that we give up all hopes upon that score ; while that part by which 
the two Governments engage to make to Governments, whose territories af- 
ford slave markets " all becoming representations and remonstrances, and to 
urge on such Governments the propriety and duty of closing such slave 
markets at once and for ever," is really a curious step backwards in the road 
of abolition. -Who are those Governments to which these " becoming repre- 
sentations and remonstrances" are to be made ? Spain and Brazil, and none 
other. It is in Cuba and Brazil alone that slaves are imported and bought.. 
But Spain and Brazil are aheady bound by the most positive stipulations and 
engagements of treaty to close for ever and long ago their slave markets, and 
to prevent any of their subjects from engaging directly or indirectly in slave 
trade. If we find or think that Spain and Brazil violate those engagements of 
treaty, we have a right of war against them, and if we choose, we have a 
right to take any forcible means short of war for compelling a fulfilment of 
those engagements. In this state of things, England having treaty rights 
which are violated, and America having no treaty rights, because she has made 
no such treaties, I^ord Ashburton gets the United States to bind themselves 
to represent to Spain and Brazil how very wrong and ill-bred it is of them to 
treat England with contempt by openly and continually breaking their treaty 
engagements to her. This really is too pitiful. Nobody could have ex- 
pected to see Great Britain brought down to so low a pitch of degra- 
dation as to go and beg another power to help her in representing to a 
third party the "■propriety and duty" of fulfilling engagements entered into- 
towards England, and which England is well able, if she thinks fit, to en- 
force. If Spain and Brazil do not fulfil their engagements, why not act to- 
wards them as we did towards Portugal? Why not take a legislative power 
to enforce our treaty rights by means of our own? If, on the other haiid,, 
;ve prefer submitting to the breach of engagements rather than incur the in- 
conveniences which such a course of active measures might produce, let us 
at least make our own remonstrances and on our own behalf. But to go and 
ask the United States to help us to complain, is really most degrading. If 
the engagement had been that the United States should undertake to join us 
in measures of coercion to compel Spain and Brazil to put an end to the 
slave trade, that would have been another thing. But the stipulation goes 
to no such result, and we may send special luissions enough to Washington, 
before our good brother Jonathan will make any such engagement. 

We had written thus far when we received our French express, bringing 
the Paris journals of Sunday, which, we observe, publish and comment up- 
on the treaty. What force their observations add to what we have been say- 
ing upon this very point respecting the slave trade! 

" Relative to the article touching the slave trade," says the Comtitutionnel,. 
" we shall merely observe, either that the right of search is implicitly recog- 
nised thereby, and the United States Government has sacrificed the freedom 



10 

of the sea, or else the treaty excludes tht right of search^ and thus England 
has signed, by the hands of Lord Ashburlon, her o\v n condemnation ; for she 
will have thereby admitted that the right of search is not the only means of 
putting down the slave trade, and thereby given full force to all the argu- 
ments of the French opposition." 

Yes, indeed, " England has signed her own condemnation by the hands 
of Lord Ashbuilon," and "has given full force to all the arguments of the 
French opposition." 

The Courricr Fiaiigais says — "In the treaty the 7-ight of search is re- 
placed by the right of good imderstaitding. There is no reciprocal search, 
examination of papers and cargoes. The squadrons are to be of equal force, 
each watchiag the slave-dealings of its own nation ; but the officers are to 
have orders to co-operate, after consulting together. This may be practica- 
ble as long as the commanders agree. But will it not produce constant cel- 
lision ? Will the caprice or private interest of a captain never suffice to pro- 
cure impunity to the slave-trader of his nation?" 

The Courrier Fra?igais is quite right. Lord Ashburton has abandoned 
the right of search question, and we confess we cannot now see how M. 
Guizot can venture to ratify the treaty of 1841 without exciting the strong- 
est feelings of indignation in the French opposition. How can Lord Aber- 
deen ask France to make concessions, which the United States have refused 
to make to Lord Ashburton ? Indeed, a French ministerial paper. La Presse, 
we see, goes so far as to say that America having obtained such an article 
as this, the French Government cannot fail instantly to demand the abroga- 
tion of the treaties of 1831 and 1833. To what consequences the cowardly 
imbecility of this Government is leading! 

But if there was no reason to apprehend that the Senate would refuse to 
ratify these portions of the treaty, as little reason was there to apprehend the 
rejection of the third and remaining part. The mutual surrender of persons 
charged with certain criminal offences is an arrangement good for both par- 
ties, but quite as iiiuch so for the Americans as for us. Indeed, it is more 
advantageous to the American Government, inasmuch as it is easier for 
American culprits to fly by land to the British provinces than for English 
criminals to cross the Atlantic to the United States. Besides, an arrange- 
ment of this sort was first suggested by the Americans themselves. 

It being perfectly clear, then, that there was no probability of any part of 
tlie treaty — either that relating to the boundary, to the slave-trade, or to the 
mutual surrender of criminals — being rejected if sent up separately, is it not 
manifest that the grand scheme of putting the three conventions into one, 
in order to insure their being accepted or rejected together, was a grand hoax 
of the President and Mr. Webster, and was part of the beautiful mystifica- 
tion which throughout the whole of this negotiation they have so success- 
fully practised upon the British Cabinet and its negotiator at Washington. 
All these great dinners, and large meetings, and fine speeches that make 
such a figure in the American papers, are nothing more than noisy efforts to 
conceal the laugh in the sleeve which will burst forth in all its natural in- 
tensity, when Lord Ashburton has left America, and they know that we 
have ratified the treaty. Jonathan enjoys making a dupe, and he has had his 
fill of that pleasure upon this occasion. 

But perhaps, after all, Lord Ashburton may not have been duped, but 
may only have been giving effect to the feelings and principles which it is 
well known he entertains with regard to America and Canada. Upon the 



11 

two latter points of the treaty his lordship may have been only indulging the 
amiable anxiety of doing something agreeable to his fellow-citizens, while 
upon the boundary question he was but giving effect to his old principles. 
" It is impossible," said Mr. Baring, in the discussion on Mr. Wihnot Hor- 
ton's Canadian Waste Lands Bill, in 1S25, " i< is impossible that Canada 
can co?itinue to he very long a colony of Great Britain. ... It will, 
therefore, be wise to consider the propriety of doing that freely and in time, 
which may otherwise be accomplished after great bloodshed and expense. I 
would recommend the Government to call on the Legislature of Canada to 
inquire whether they felt themselves strong enough to separate from the 
mother country, and desired to be set on their own legs." Lord Ashburton 
may be one of those prophets who sometimes realise their own vaticinations, 
for his treaty may render it " impossible that Canada can continue very long 
to be a colony of Great Britain." 



September 2\, 1842. 

Amongst those who coincide with our strictures upon Lord Ashburton's 
treaty, there are some who still think that we ought to be content with any 
conditions by wdiich what they call " a settlement" is to be obtained. Sir 
Robert Peel no doubt calculated upon the easy acquiescence of some of the 
liberal party, when he agreed to accept worse terms than he otherwise would 
have consented to. 

It is not unnatural that on the same principle on which a burnt chil4 
dreads the fire, or, as the Italians say, a scalded cat runs away from cold wa- 
ter, they who have objected to the enormous load of debt resulting from the 
war from 1793 to 1815, should dread the very name of war, and should wish 
to purchase peace by almost any sacrifice. But real, permanent, and lasting 
peace is not to be so purchased. The commodity which is obtained by un- 
due concessions is a spurious one ; it is ill made and of bad materials ; it will 
not last, and is soon worn out, and it is bad policy to buy it. 

It is well known that some of the extreme members of the liberal party 
are for peace at all price, and from different motives would totally disregard 
our foreign interests. Anxious to bring about internal changes, they wish to 
concentrate public attention upon home questions. They look upon every 
thought which is bestowed upon foreign affairs as so much stolen from them. 
They think that in the body politic, as in the body physical, two inflam- 
mations cannot coexist ; and they wish that all the inflammatory action 
should be brought to bear upon the organic changes which they labor to bring 
about. A narrower or more foolish view of national interests it is impossi- 
ble to take. 

There are others who consider that commerce is the only legitimate object 
of care for a government in the management of our foreign relations. But 
must not our commerce be injured by lowering the character and position of 
the country ? and must not the character and position of the country be 
lowered by this peace-at-all-price policy. Look at the conduct of other na- 
tions. What does Russia do ? When a Persian Governor enforces the or- 
dinary custom-house laws on a Russian merchant, the Russian Ambassador 
at Teheran insists upon having the Persian Governor sent to him in chains. 
And in chains he is sent. The Russian Ambassador, after exulting over his 



12 

iiumiliation, and seeing: him prostrate at his feet, sends him with contemp- 
tuous mercy away. What do the French do? A Governor of Taugiers 
gives them some offence ; they send a ship of war ; the captain demands to 
iiave half-a-dozen of the chief Moors bastinadoed in his presence, and forth- 
with it is done. How is it that Russia and France so easily obtain the ful- 
iilment of demands so extreme as these — demands which we should be sorry 
to see any British Government putting forward ? AVhy, simply because it is 
well known that with them it is a word and a blow — that they are not 
peace-at-all-price gentlemen, and that, if their demands be not complied 
with, force will be employed. But force is war — war that is so much dread- 
ed, and that is to be avoided by all means and by every sacrifice. 

And does the commerce of these nations derive no advantage from this 
vigorous administration of their foreign policy ? Most undoubtedly it does 
derive the greatest advantage, and frequently much to the prejudice of ours. 

By all means, then, let us try, as our first object, to maintain peace ; but 
let us remember that we shall not do so by proclaiming that we are ready to 
make any saerifice or concession in order to avoid war. But if it is danger- 
ous to declare our willingness to make concessions to avoid war, it is still 
more dangerous actually to make concessions. Look at the first effect of 
Lord Ashburton's " concessions," as illustrated in the extracts which we pub- 
lish in another column, from the French newspapers. The first fruit of 
your truckling to America is that you nuist make the same degrading ko-too 
\o France. You have given a colour to the refusal of France to ratify the 
treaty, the negotiation of which liad all but plunged tlie two countries into 
war. 



Se-pteinber 22, 1S4^. 

Some of our Tory contemporaries have taken an amusing objection io our 
analysis of Lord Asliburton's treaty. That document was actually " three 
days in England before we ventured to give an opinion upon it." This de- 
lay must seem very unaccountable to writers so long accustomed to habits of 
extemporaneous condemnation. Still, looking to the sort of defence which 
Ihey are making for the treaty, we cannot help thinking they might have 
followed our example without disadvantage to their cause. 

'' With Lord Ashburton's various sayings, now and heretofore," the Iwies 
" professes little concern." Our contemporary, indeed, " quite agrees with 
us in reprobating the bad taste of an English Ambassador who, in a public 
speech, delivered in his capacity of Ambassador, could designate Boston as a 
' hallowed spot,' ' the old cradle of liberty,' on the strength of its having 
originated that revolt which deprived the British Crown of those provinces," 

Now, we confess if these proceedings of Lord Ashburton were merely 
evidence of " bad taste," we sirould concern ourselves very little about them^ 
and should be quite sausfied to leave them to the " reprobation" of our fas- 
tidious contemporary. But it did and does srill seem lo us that " the vari- 
ous sayings now and heretofore " of the British Ambassador are important, 
as showing die predilections of the man by whom this negotiation was con- 
cluded. Convinced that " Canada could not long remain connected with 
England," is it any wonder that he should have neglected to obtain for 
Canada the protection of a good boundary? Obviously feeling lor the? 



13 

Anieiicaii revolution all the enlliusiasm of an Anjerican citizen, is it any 
wonder that Lord Ashburton should have forgotten in his negotiation, as he 
did in these public exhibitions, that he was the Ambassador of the Crown of 
England, instead of an adopted citizen of the United States? People who 
glibly tell us that they " profess very little concern with Lord Ashburton's 
sayings now or heretofore," appear very litde qualified to form an opinion 
upon Lord Ashburton's doings. 

All the defenders of this treaty agree that England has made great " con- 
cessions," '' great sacrifices." They are justified by the Times as forcibly, 
it appears to us, as the case admits. Our contemporary asks, " Would the 
United States have settled the dispute on any other terms ? This is the real 
point of the matter. Would they not have interposed delays — would noL 
Maine have been refractory, and the Federal Government lukewarm ? Would 
not the independence of the individual state, and the inability of the Gov- 
ernment to act without its concurrence, have been again played off upon us ? 
And would not the question have been thus adjourned till the next occasion, 
when Great Britain had her hands full ?" In these few words we have an 
epitome of the Tory principles of foreign policy. " Woidd they have settled 
the dispute on any other terms?" Only let this be distinctly understood by 
every foreign nation. Let them prescribe their own conditions, and then tell 
us they "will not settle the dispute on any other terms," and, having to deal 
with the representative of a Tory Government, they may entertain no appre- 
hensions of tli^ consequences. How well this appears to be already under- 
stood in France ! " England," says an inlluential Paris journal, •' England, 
always ready to draw^ the sword when her demands are resisted, has just 
proved, by her recent treaty with the United States, that she knows how to 
j'ield opportunely, and that her pride can bend before her embarrassments. 
This is a lesson — a hint to us. We have long maintained that in the pres- 
ent position of the world, the English may threaten the timid, frighten the 
fearful, but will not attack strong and firm Governments. The mission of 
Lord Ashburton furnishes us with ample proofs of this assertion. England 
has yielded to her American rival, quite happy with saving appearances, 
w^hich every one can see through." This isthe befitting commentary on the 
Tory principle. " Woidd they have settled the dispute upon any other 
terms 7 " 

But the negotiator has not even done justice to his own truckling princi- 
ple. It is assumed that because we had not been able to get " any other 
terms" since 1783, we ought therefore to be contented with the first that are 
offered to us in 1842. 

It is quite true that " this question has puzzled the two nations for fifty 
years;" and it is the misfortune of England, when at the end of the fifty 
years she finds herself, for the Jirst time, in a position to claim as of right 
the boundary line according to the terms of the treaty, her Government is in 
the hands of men who only ask themselves '-will the United States settle the 
dispute upon other terms than those of her own dictation !" 

It appears to us that the few persons who still seem disposed to approve of 
Lord Ashburton's treaty lose sight of this most important consideration, tliat 
this year,/or the first time since 1783, we were in a position to demand, as 
an ascertained right, the line of boundary laid down in the treaty of 1783, 
The whole question, when unfortunately handed over to Lord Ashburton, 
stood upon grounds totally different to what it had rested upon since 1783, 
upon grounds very much more favourable to England. By the treaty of 



14 

1783, it is stipulated that a part of the boundary between the United States 
and the British North American Provinces is to consist of a line drawn due 
north from (he head of the river St. Croix, until it meels certain highlands; and 
then by a line drawn westward from that north line, and along those high- 
lands to the head of the Connecticut river. The question between the two 
countries was the application of this line to the natural features of the coun- 
try. So little was known about the country, that it was believed the words 
could not be applied. Under this conviction the Tory Government refened 
the question to the arbitration of the King of Holland, who gave his award 
under the impression that the line of the treaty was incompatible with the 
features of the country. Under this impression, also, the "Whig Government 
subsequently offered to divide the territory. Both the award, however, and 
the offer, were declined by the American Government. It only remained, 
then, to have recourse to a reference ; and, as a preparation for this, the late 
Government did what no preceding Government had thought of doing — they 
had the disputed territory explored and surveyed. Two years ago, Colonel 
Mudge and Mr. Featherstonhaugh made their report upon the examination 
of the line claimed by England. That report establishes for the first time 
the fact that the line claimed by us is perfectly consistent both with the words 
of the treaty, and the features of the country. It proves that from the point 
at which our line strikes off westward from the due north line, it does run 
along a chain of well-defined highlands, and that this chain continues on to 
the head of the Connecticut river. We are, therefore, quite at a loss to com- 
prehend what the Times means when it denies that the commission has 
proved that the words of the treaty are applicable to the features of the 
country. 

But not satisfied with proving that our claim was in strict accordance with 
the words of the treaty, the late Government also determined to ascertain 
whether the words of the treaty could be also applied to the line claimed by 
the United States. A second commission was accordingly appointed, and 
after exploring and surveying the American line, presented their report to the 
present Government. It is shown in tbat report that the line claimed by the 
United States does not fulfil the conditions required by the treaty, and is not 
consistent with the words of that treaty and with the features of the country. 
But it is not necessary to pursue this part of the subject further, the Times 
admitting " that the line claimed by the Americans does not agree with the 
words of the treaty of 1783." 

Let it not be urged, therefore, in extenuation of Lord Ashburton's sacrifice, 
that his lordship found this question in the complicated state in which it had 
kin for the last fifty years. On the contrary, it was disembarrassed of the 
difficulties by which it was before surrounded, and was reduced to the sim- 
plest and narrowest limits. We were wholly unshackled by any previous 
undertaking or compromise. The repeated refusal of the United States to 
accept either the award of the King of the Netherlands or the subsequent 
offer of Lord Grey's Government left the entire question as it was ab initio ; 
while the two reports of our commissions, the one proving that our claim 
■was conformable to the words of the treaty, and the other that the American 
claim was not, placed t^ord Ashburton in a position from which he might 
have obtained terms less perilous to our North American colonies, less dis- 
graceful to our national character tlran those which he has been deluded into 
accepting. 
As we anticipated, an attempt is made to stigmatise those who condemn 



u 

liord Ashburton's treaty as clamouring for war. This is nothing- better thau 
childish absurdity. It would be just as reasonable to say that those who de- 
fend the refusal of compensation for the burning of the Caroline, " counsel 
war." If Mr. Webster thought proper to tell Lord Ashburton that he 
" would not settle the dispute upon any other terms" than compensation for 
the burning of that pirate boat, would the recommendation to refuse that 
compensation be " clamouring for war?" He does an injustice quite as 
flagrant, far more pregnant, be assured, with danger to (he existence of peace 
between the two nations, and beyond measure more disgraceful to the char- 
acter of this country, when he demands such extravagant concessions as the 
Americanised British negotiator did not scruple to accede to. Apart from 
the consequences which must result in our diplomatic intercourse with other 
nations from this pitiful exhibition of imbecility, we have agreed to a boun- 
dary line, encumbered with conditions which will render the preservation of 
peace as dangerous and as expensive as the prosecution of war; while war, 
should it arise, must be undertaken with the enemy witliin your very camp. 

But even the disgrace of having been bullied or deluded into these terri- 
torial and other concessions, sinks into insignificance wlien compared with 
the abandonment of the Madawaska settlers. That this should not seem a 
mere party view, we prefer to any observations of our own to adopt the com- 
ments of a ministerial contemporary, the Morning Herald: 

" In 1783 could any man have dreamt of yielding up to the independent 
colonies subjects of the British Crown who had not shared in the revolt? 
And yet the year IS42 has exhibited the fact of England having surrendered 
to a foreign power British subjects owing allegiance to the British Crown, not 
in revolt against it, not having joined an enemy, but clinging to it for sup- 
port and protection. Enghshmen, look at this fact. Say whether you have 
heard of such an act before in the history of England, and whether a na- 
tion, we speak not of small States controlled by the power of others, but the 
bulwark and rock, shielding its weaker neighbours against the torrent of 
wrong and of injustice, itself yielding up portions of its" own body, children 
of its own loins; doing that as a nation which it would hold one of its sub- 
jects to be a felon if he contemplated the performance of? Such an exln- 
bition, is it not one calculated to shock and to arouse xmth indignation any 
man who lias hitherto felt himself distinguished and honoured by the name 
of Briton 9 Is ii not a sight to fill with dismay whoever feels for the 
character of man or the fate of nations ?" 

But probably America " would not settle the dispute upon any other 
terms." 



September 24, 1842. 

The Times of yesterday carps at an expression 'used by the Chronicle of 
the preceding day in an article upon Lord Ashburton 's capitulation. In 
mentionmg the highlands, along which a part of the boundary between tlie 
United States and the British provinces is, according to the second article of 
the treaty of 1783, to run, we described them as " certain highlands," and 
the Times asserts that the word " certain," is" a convenient ambiguity," em- 
ployed for the purpose of keeping out of sight what the Times considers as 
the weak point of the British case, namely, the question whether the high- 



16 

lands so mentioned do or do not divide " rivers that empty themselves into 
the river St. Lawrence from those wliich fall into the Atlantic ocean.''' The 
words of the treaty. That is to say, that we sought to siiirk what has beein 
called " the river question." 

Now, not to dwell upon the odd notion of the Tmes, that" certainty" and 
" ambiguity" are synonymous or identical, we beg to remark, that in the ar- 
gument to which the article in the Times alludes we were insisting only up- 
on one condition, required by the treaty to be found in the bounding high- 
lands, and that was the condition that they should extend continuously from 
the due north line to be drawn from the head of the St. Croix, and that they 
should be distinctly traceable from thence to " the northwesternmost head of 
Connecticut," and our argument was that the highlands claimed by Eng- 
land do fulfil that condition, and that the highlands claimed by the United 
States do not ; and it seems to us that, on this point, the Times entirely 
agrees with us as to the merits of the British claim. 

It was not necessary for our argument to touch upon the argument as to 
the river question ; and to have done so would only have encumbered our 
sentence and have diverted the attention of our readers from the point to 
%vhich we then wished to direct it. Therefore, instead of mentioning the 
highlands by the long description, about their dividing rivers, we called them 
" certain'''' highlands. Now, we have no objection to be tied down to the 
literal meaning of our expression, for we consider it as " certain'''' that those 
highlands are the highlands of the treaty. We consider that fact is " ascer- 
iaincd^" and the application of the word " certain" to the highlands in the 
question is the reverse of ambiguity, 

Tliese highlands, be it observed, continue in one unbroken chain from a 
point to the south of the great Falls of the St. John, on to the head of the Con- 
necticut, dividing as they run the Chaudiere and a variety of smaller rivers 
that empty themselves into the St. Lawrence, from the Androscoggin, the 
Kennebec, and the Penobscot, and their numerous tributaries, which all fah 
into the Atlantic ocean. These highlands, therefore, do literally fulfil the 
condition of the treaty of 1783, as to the division of rivers, as well as they 
fulfil the other condition as to continuity from the due north line to the head 
of the Connecticut. But then, says the Times., the highlands claimed by 
the United Slates, and which lie north of the St. John, fulfil the river con- 
dition equally, though the Times is obliged to confess that those highlands 
do not in any way fulfil the continuity condition, because, as the Times ac- 
knowledges, they neither touch the due north line at one end, nor do they 
go even near to the head of the Connecticut at the other end. But the 
Times thinks that these highlands, or ridge of hills, claimed by the United 
Slates as the line of boundary, do fulfil the river condition, and do divide riv- 
ers that empty themselves into the St. Lawrence from rivers which fall into 
the Atlantic ocean ; for, says our contemporary, they divide the insignificant 
streams which fringe the St. LaiDrence fiom the St. John, which falls into 
the Bay of Fundy ; and according to the Times, the Bay of Fuady is the 
Arlantic ocean. 

Now, in the first place, we have to observe, that though it is true, as the. 
Timis asserts, that tlie chain of hills claimed by the United States does divide 
ihe insignificant streams which fringe the St. Laivrence, from rivers flow- 
ing to the southward, yet the treaty of 1783 spoke not of insignificant streams 
but of rivers, and the highlands claimed by the Americans do indeed throw 
down to the northward into the St. Lawrence some, but not even all, of the 



17 

insignificant streams which fringe that river, but those highlands do not throw 
down into the St. Lawrence the waters of the River Chaiidiere, the most 
considerable river, almost the only considerable river that does empty itself 
from those quarters into the St. Lawrence; for the Chaudiere rises tar south 
of (hose highlands, taking its source at the foot of the range of hills claimed 
by England. 

The highlands claimed by the United States therefore, do not fulfil the 
first part of the river condition, by throwing down to the northward the 
rivers which empty themselves into the St. John. But still less do they ful- 
fil the second part of the river condition by throwing down to the south the 
rivers which fall into the Atlantic ocean. The only river which they throw 
down to the south is the river St. John, and that river falls not into the At- 
lantic ocean, but into the Bay of Fundy. But says the Times this is a quib- 
ble, there is no real distinction between the Bay of Fundy and the Atlantic 
ocean, for the purposes of the treaty of 1783. 

Now it is well known that this question, whether the Bay of Fundy is, for 
the purpose of interpreting the treaty of 1783, to be held synonymous with, 
or contradistinguished from, the Atlantic ocean, is a question which has been 
inosi elaborately argued between the British and the United States Govern- 
ments ; it was discussed at very great length in the statements of the British 
and of the American cases which were laid before the king of Holland whea 
he was invited (o arbitrate ; and upon a full consideration of the arguments 
on both sides he pronounced his opinion, that rivers falling into the Bay of 
Fundy could not be considered as rivers falling into the Atlantic ocean for 
the pus-poses of the treaty. The very elaborate, and as the result proved, 
conclusive and triumphant arguments in favor of the British claim on this 
point, are generally understood to have been drawn up by Sir Stratford Can- 
ning now ambassador under the present Government, and by Mr. Addington, 
now Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and they were sent in to 
the arbitrator in 1828, as good and sufficient grounds for the British claim, by 
(he Earl of Aberdeen, then, as now, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. 

It would be sufficient, then, for the present to refer the Times to the mem- 
bers of the Government which it supports, for a full and entire refutation of 
the argument, which it has at last been driven to employ in their defence : 
but what must be the wretched shifts and extremity to which a Government 
must be reduced, when their supporters and advocates are obliged to endeavor 
to defend their present acts, by arguments which the men composing that 
government have in the most elaborate and conclusive manner, and to the 
satisfaction of a foreign arbitrating power, proved to be false and untenable. 

We will not anticipate unnecessarily, by any lengthened detail, the full 
and complete answer which the Foreign Office will no doubt hasten to give 
;:.o this reproduction by the Times oi the exploded American argument upon 
this fundamental point. But, without referring to those ancient charters and 
treaties, and the proceedings of Congress which might be quoted in support 
of the British view of this question, we will simply state that the second arti- 
cle of the treaty of 1783 itself recognises the distinction between the Bay of 
Fundy, and the Atlantic ocean. For in its progress of its description of (he 
boundary of the United States, it says that a portion of the southern part of 
(his boundary is to run " from the junction of the Gatatrouche with the Flint 
Fviver, straight to the head of the St. Mary's River, and thence down along 
the middle of the St. Mary's River to the Atlantic ocean.'''' It then goes oh 
10 say «< that the eastern boundary shall be a line drawn along the middle of 
2 ' 



18 

the river St. Croix, from its tnoiiih in the Bay of Fundy to its source, and 
ifrom its source to the highlands, which divide the rivers (hat fall into the At- 
lantic nceatt (mm those which fall into the river St. Lawrence, comprehend- 
jng all islands within twenty leagues of the shores of the United Stales, and 
iying between lines to be drawn due east from the points where the aforesaid 
boundaries, between Nova Scotia on the one hand, and East Florida on the 
ether, shall respectively touch the Bay of Fundy and the Atlantic occan.^^ 
Here, then, ihe treaty of 1T83 itself, in the very article which fixes the boun- 
dary ; and in one and the same paragraph mentions the Bay of Fundy, and 
the Atlantic oceari, as two separate things to be contradistinguished from eftcli 
other; and this is the more remarkable and conclusive, because we believe 
lhaX in a former part of the negotiation it had been proposed to use the word 
*'sea" instead of " Atlantic ocean," and " Bay of Fundy ;'' and it is mani- 
fest that if the framcrs of the treaty had not meant to establish a distinction 
^between the Bay of Fundy and the Atlantic ocean, they would have used 
in each case the more simple and comprehensive term "the sea,'- which 
would have applied both to the Bay of Fundy, and to the Atlantic ocean. 

The term " Atlantic Ocean" is a peculiar and precise term, and seems to 
have been chosen expressly to contradistinguish the portion of the open sea 
which it was to designate, from that inore confined and land-locked portion 
of the sea which bears the name of the Bay of Fundy. 

The Times warns us to take care that, when we have loaded our guns 
•4ieavi!y, we do not fire them at friends instead of foes; we tiiank him for ac- 
knowledging that our guns have been well loaded, and our fire has beeji ef- 
fective ; but we flatter ourselves that our discharge has all told in the ene- 
my's rank?. The Times itself, indeed, as we have just shown, has not been 
so lucky; foi though its argument about the Bay of Fundy can only be 
likened to a blank cartridge, that blank cartridge has been fired slap into the 
Foreign office, and has been levelled at Lord Aberdeen and Mr. Addington. 

But the Times says that Lord Grey's Government would have given up 
that part of the Madawaska settlement which lies south of the St. John. 
That is perfectly true, but is no excuse whatever to the present Government 
for having done so now. Lord Grey's Government acted according to the 
information then possessed of the geographical features of the country, as 
bearing upon the interpretation of the treaty of 1783. That Government 
did more than offer to give up a portion of the Madawaska settlement. It 
offered to accept the recommendation of the King of Holland, which gave 
to England only the small portion of territory which the present Government 
have not even obtained as a matter of right, but have purchased by the sur- 
render of a right of way through New Brunswick. But the whole stzite of 
the case has been altered since those times, by the complete proof obtained 
of the rightfulness of our claim by the surveys of the commissioners sent to 
explore the country ; and there cannot be a more pitiful defence for the con- 
duct of the present Government, with all the newly acquired information in 
their hands, than to say that Lord Grey's Government would have been wil- 
ling to do the same thing ten years ago, when they had not acquired that iu- 
formation. But Lord Grey's Government never consented to give tlie peo- 
ple of Maine a right of way through New Brunswick ; and, by the by, we 
should like to know what would happen if, in time of peace with the United 
States, but in times of trouble in New Brunswick, a set of notorious sympa- 
thisers were to occupy themselves in their vocation up and dow^n the St. 
John, tampering with our subjects, and exciting disafiection. Our Govennoi 
would bid thera to be off, and they would stick their arras akirabo; andsneec- 



13^ 

ing in the face of iliosc who lold thetn to go, would declare that they had as- 
good a right to be there as the Governor himself; and they would appeal to- 
the Ashburton capitulation in proof of their a-:?ertion. 

One word more to the Times. It refers to propositions formerly made, 
and to arrangements formerly suggested; we should like to know whether 
any gov'ernor of New Brunswick, at any recent period, and before Lord 
Ashburton's unfortunate mission, ever suggested to '.he British Government 
that he thought, and not upon light grounds, that the State of Maine might 
be induced to consent to an arrangement by which the boundary between 
the two countries should be a line drawn from the Great Falls through the 
country south of the St. John (and leaving the Madawaska settlement to 
England,) and cutting the St, John at the mouth of the Fish River, and 
thence up the St, John to its source. We have heard that it was reported in* 
New Brunswick that such an arrangement might have been consented to bv* 
Mauie. Perhaps the Times might inquire at the Colonial-office whethei 
this report had any foundation, when it settles tlie dispute about the Bay oK 
Fundy with the Foreign office. 



September 26, 1842. 

The defence of the Ashburton capitulation, abandoned by the daily press ,. 
is taken up by oui weekly contemporary, the Examiner. 

Our contemporary says that Lord Ashburton had insufficient material;?;- 
upon which to found his negotiation, inasmuch as he liad onl}- the treaty of 
1783, aiid the report of ]\Iudge and Featherstonhaugh. But if a negotiator 
is sent with insufficient materials, whose fault is that? Obviously of those 
who send him thus imperfectly provided to conduct an important business.. 
They ought to have delayed liirn a little longer, till they should be able (o. 
give him all the necessary materials with which to support the interests he. 
was sent to defend. But the assertion is erroneous in its inference, for tiiose 
materials were sufficient, and any impartial man who will carefully read the 
second article of the treaty of J7S3, and the Mudge and Featherstonhaugh. 
report will probably admit that those tw^o documents do contain conchisive 
proof of the justice of our case. But the assertion is also erroneous in fact, 
for before Lord Ashburton began his negotiation, and even before he left 
England, the second commissioners liad finished iheir survey, and he had- 
the substance, at least, and the result of the mission of Broughton and.. 
Featherstonliaugh, even if he had net their barometric details, which were . 
unnecessary i^or ids purpose. 

If he had not this information collected by this second commission, it 
was the fault of his Government, for they had it, and ought to have giveia it . 
him ; and that last report fills up any gap which want of time had obliged 
the first commissioners to leave in their chain of evidence, and rendered the 
proof of our case complete. 

The Examiner, therefore, is wrong in saying that the Chronicle asserted 
that the report of the two first commissioners is the sole foundation for the 
assertion that our claim is made out. The Examiner has, however, mis- 
understood even that report ; that report does not say that the boundary can* - 
not be traced in conformity wiih the treaty from the head of the St. CroiXj , 
as determined by the treaty of 1T98 ; what that report argues and contends -, 



for is that the head so determined is not the real head as intended by the 
treaty of 1783, and thai therefore the due noith hne drawn from that head 
o^ives to the Americans a large strip of territory lo which they had no right ; 
and tliat therefore, if the treaty of 17S3 is to be strictly executed, that strip 
ouo-ht to be taken from the Americans and to be restored to New Brunswick. 
Messr.?. Mudge and Featherstonhaugh, however, not only contend, butprove 
that the due north line, starting even from the erroneously determined point 
which, by the treaty of 1798, is fixed upon as the head of the St. Croix, 
does intersect highlands which fulfil the conditions of the treaty, and which 
extend from the Bay of Chaleurs to the head of the Connecticut; and the 
report argues, and successfully, that the point where the due north line first 
intersects those highlands, is the north-west angle of Nova Scotia, intended 
by the treaty of 1783. The identity of that range of highlands with the 
highlands described by the treaty has been established in all respects. They 
are continuous from the due north line to the head of the Connecticut; and 
they do divide rivers falling into the Atlantic ocean from rivers falling into 
the St. Lawrence. The Chronicle on Saturday stated at length the proof 
upon which tliat assertion rests, but there is still another proof, furnished by 
the treaty of 1783 itself, that both parties to that treaty meant to establish a 
distinction between the Bay of Fundy and the Atlantic Ocean. For it was 
ao-reed that the St. Croix should form part of the boundary, and it will be 
seen, by reference to old maps of a date previous to 1783, that several rivers 
bore that name, but two especially, namely, the one now so called, and 
which falls into the Bay of Fundy, and the Pussamaquoddy, which falls 
into the Atlantic Ocean. It was highly impor'ant for the Americans that no 
ambiguity should be left as to which of these two rivers was to be the boun- 
darv, because the Passamaquoddy is much more westward than the rivernow 
called the St. Croix, and they would have lost much territory if the western 
of the two St. Croixes had been taken as the boundary. In order, therefore, 
to leave no doubt whether it was the Atlantic St. Croix or the Bay of Fundy 
St. Croix, that was to be chosen, they took care to specify the river they 
meant, as beino- the St. Croix which had '■^ its mouth in the Bay of Fundy ;^^ 
and surely if the distinction between the Bay of Fundy and the Atlantic 
Ocean was to be established in one sentence of the treaty for the benefit of 
the Fnited States, that distinction must be maintained in another sentence 
where it turns for tlie benefit of Great Britain. But if any doubt could have 
been entertained upon this subject, that doubt is removed by the wording 
even of the Ashburton^cnpitulation ; for the negotiators, as if to render the 
surrender which il contains still more humiliating to England, imbody in 
their d*'Scription of the new line of boundary an admission of the original 
claim of England. 

In describing the western extremity of the boundary between Canada and 
Maine the negotiators were obliged to describe the two ranges of highlands^ 
the one, namely, which is claimed by America as the highlands of the treaty ; 
and the other which is claimed as such by England. For the new line, in 
its course from the St. Francis to the Connecticut, first skirts along the range 
so claimed by the Americans, and then strikes off across the low swampy 
flat of twenty-five miles breadth described by Broughton and Featherston- 
haugh, and is carried to the southward to the range of highlands claimed by 
Eno-land. And how does this notable treaty describe these two ranges? 
"Why, the American range is described as " dividing riv-ers which flow into 
the St. Lawrence fiom rivers which flow into the St. John" while the other 



2i 

range, which is the range claimed by England is desciibed as •* dividing riv- 
ers which fall into the St. Lawrence from rivers wdiich fall into (he Atlantic 
(>ceany Thus the range claimed by England is described in the words of 
the treaty of 1783, and the range claimed by the United States is not so 
described. But (he range so described as fulfilling the rirer condition of the 
treaty is the identical range which in a further part of its course is intersected 
by the due north line from the St. Croix, at the point which England has 
contended to be (he north west angle of Nova Scotia. 

The Examiner dien assuming that the true line could not be traced, (in 
which our contemporary is mistaken,) and that consequently a conventional 
line had become necessary, says that such conventional line ought " to pre- 
sent a good natural boundary, and an equitable division of the disputed ter- 
ritory ;" and he thinks the Ashburton line does both, and that no fairer line 
could have been laid down ! Now, it seems\ilterly impossible that so shrewd 
and sagacious a writer could have expressed such an opinion, if he had look- 
ed for a moment at the map, and had followed out upon it the boundary 
described by the treaty. First as to its presenting a good natural boundary, 
instead of that the line presents no natural boundary at all, except during 
that portion of it which runs along the St. John, between (lie due north line 
and the mouth of the St. Francis. The St. Francis itself is a comparatively 
small river, which cannot be called a good natural boundary between neigh- 
bouring States, though it might do very well as an internal boundary between 
different provinces of the same State ; and from the St. Francis to the Con- 
necticut, \\\G part nearest to Quebec, the line runs along no natural boundary 
whatever, but is described, (if indeed that term can be applied to the confused 
jumble of words out of which the course of that portion of the line is to be 
extracted,) by points to be measured by a certain number of miles from other 
points which are yet to be ascertained ; and which are so loosely and vaguely 
described that no two men will probably agree which they are, unless our 
commissioner, who is to help to mark them down, shall be ordered to be as 
acquiescent in the dictates of the American commissioner as Lord Ashburton 
seems to have been towards Mr. Webster. If the boundary had been drawn 
along the heights which form the southern ridge of the valley of the St. John, 
or even if it had been a line drawn from the Great Falls to the mouth of the 
Allagash, and thence along the St. John to its soiuces, and still more if it 
had been the line claimed by England along the southern dividing ridge, it 
would have presented a good natural boundary^ but, as it is, it presents none. 
But then, is it an equitable division of the disputed territory 9 Why, 
even those who are the most disposed to cavil at the British claim have been 
compelled to admit that our claim was in all respects founded upon better 
grounds than the American claim ; and if that be so, even supposing, for ar- 
gument's sake, that our claim was not completely established, at least we 
were entitled to a portion of the territory in dispute, proportioned to the supe- 
rior goodness of our case. We ought to have had the larger sliare upon ar» 
equitable (\Wmon. But what have got ? The larger share ? No. An equal 
share? No. Even a smaller share ? No; we have got no share at all — 
absolutely none ; for the capitulaUon virtually and practically yields up the 
whole territory to the United States, and then brings back a small part of 
it in exchange for the right granted to the Americans of freely navigating 
the St. John from its source to its mouth. How the Examiner can call this art, 
equitable division one is wholly at a loss to understand. 

But {he Exa77iiner says that if one of the offers made by Lord Grey's Gov» 



22 

«rnment had been accepted, and ihe St. John liad been made llie boundary 
all througii the disputed tenitory, " there can be no doubt that a claim to its 
free navigation would have been made, and covdd not have been refused ac- 
cording to established international law." The £'.rawi/?er is singularly ill 
read, both in the previous negotiations on this matter, and in international 
law. If our contemporary had taken the pains to peruse the correspondence 
which look place on this question since 1830, and which has been laid be- 
fore Parliament, he would have seen that the American Government did ask 
Tor, but did not claim, the free navigation of the St. John as a boon, in return 
for which they would give lo England some small portion of the disputed 
territory; and that (he British Government positively refused to permit that 
matter to be mixed up with the boundary question ; saying, that if the United 
States wished lo olTer for the free navigation of the St. John any equivalent 
separate from the boundary question, the British Government would, of 
course, give such a proposition that consideration to which any proposal com- 
ing from one friendly Government to another is, as a matter of course, enti- 
tled. Therefore the fact is just the reverse of what is supposed by the Ex- 
timincr, for if the St. John had been adopted as the boundary through the 
disputed territory, there is ??o doubt that the free navigation of that river to its 
isource would riol liave been granted to the United States. 

But the Examiner thinks that a demand for such freedom of navigation, if 
made, could not have been refused according to international law. This 
opinion is astonishing as coming from an English writer, though it would 
Iiave been natural if proceeding from an American. Why, almost ever)- 
body knows that this is the very question which was discussed with the 
American Government by Mr. Canning with reference lo the navigation 
of the river St. Lawrence. The Americans who, when it suits their pur- 
pose, can invent the strangest doctrines of international law, wishing to have 
the Sf. liawrence as an outlet for their produce, contended that every nation 
Ihrough wliose territory a navigable river flows has a natural right to navigate 
"sliat river freely and unmolested through all the countries which it may 
1; averse down to its mouth, just as if all those countries v.ere a continuation of 
ihe territory of such nations. Mr. Canning, in some of the most brilliant, ar- 
gumentative, and conclusive state papers ever written, tore that claim and the 
arguments on which it rested to shivers, and never was an unjust pretension 
more utterly demolished ; and it is quite certain that if so clear headed a wri- 
ter as the Examiner had been aware of that correspondence, and had taken 
the trouble to read it, he never would have written the sentence to which 
this is a reply. 

But it is not England alone that repudiates this American doctrine which 
fhe Examiner has thus taken up. All Europe is agreed on this point ; and 
when at the Congress of Vienna, in 1815, the Powers of Europe, great and 
small, wished that the rivers of Europe should, in time of peace, be open, 
from their source to their mouth, to the conmierce of all nations, those Pow- 
ers entered into a specific agreement by treaty that they should be so, subject 
always to certain duties and regulations ; and by the articles of the treaty of 
Vienna of 1815 which relate to this matter, the contracting powers all ad- 
miued that there was no such natural right as that wiiich was claimed by 
America against England upon the St. Lawrence. 

The Examiner thinks that (he Chronicle has overlooked the interests of 
commerce in its strictures on the treaty. Q.uite the contrary. No interests 
A>f commerce— that is to sav British commerce — have been taken care of in 



23 

this treaty, and there is no reason why ^ri Enghshman should be glad to^ 
see the political interests of his own country sacrificed to benefit the corumer- 
cial interests of the United States, or any other foreign country. How much. 
tiie comaiercial interests of England have been cared for in this negotia- 
tion is seen by the increased duties upon British productions which are im- 
posed by the new tariff, w^hich came out simultaneously with the treaty. 
But the treaty is so far injurious to British commerce that it renders the pos- 
session of our North American colonies for the future less secure, by giving 
to the United States an advanced post, projecting in a salient angle into the 
heart of our territory, and enabling the Americans to cut off with ease the 
communication by land between Nova Scotia and Canada. But the Exam- 
iner^ in the conclusion of his article, seems to think that colonies are of very 
little value, and that the sooner we get rid of them the better. This proba- 
bly is the feeling of our late negotiator at Washington, and it is on this prin- 
ciple only that his treaty can be looked upon with approbation. 

But setting aside all political and military and naval considerations ; lay- 
ing aside for the moment all consideration of the innnensc difference which 
it must make to England as an independent power whether that great tract 
of country which now constitutes the United States had been a portion of 
herself, bound to her by the ties of family, and following her fortunes int 
war, as well as in peace, or w^hether that great tract of country be, as it is, aa 
independent power, liable to be in hostility with England, and, at all eventsr, 
having separate views and a separate policy ; setting, for the moment, aside 
all those considerations — which, however, in their bearings involve questions 
of fleets, and armies, and vast expenses — looking, for the present, to the 
mere commercial question, must it not be manifest to every man, that if 
commerce is our object, it is better to have commerce with people who are 
sure not to endeavor to cripple our commerce by hostile tariffs, and with whom 
there is ho danger of our commerce being interrupted by war, than it can be to 
carry on commerce with people who may fight us in peace with tariffs, and ia 
war with cruizers and privateers? But if that be so as regards the United 
States, and if England cannot have been a gainer, but must have been a 
loser by the loss of the colonies whose independence she acknowledged ia 
1783, it follows that sound policy, even upon commercial considerations-^ 
ought to lead us to preserve as long as we can the connection now existing 
between our remaining North American provinces and the mother country. 

By a wise, and firm, and liberal policy, that connection may long be main- 
tained to the mutual advantage of both parties ; but it is demonstrable that 
in every point of view the Ashburton capitulation must render the conaec- 
tion more precarious. 



September 27, 1842. 

Ia our observations in yesterday's Chronicle on the Ashburton capttmla- 
tion, we inadvertently spoke of the Penobscot river as ^Ae Passomniaqnoddyy 
w^heri alluding to the two rivers which, in the old maps, bore the name of 
St. Croix. The Passammaquoddy is, in fact, the St. Croix which Wi.Ls fixed 
upon, and which falh into Passammaquoddy bay, in the Bay of Fundy« 
The Penobscot which foils into the Atlantic further w^esiward, is tlie otber 
river to which we intended to advert. The mistake must have been obvij & 



24 

«notigk to those acquainted with the subject, but we are anxious, by cOiTCCl- 
ing it, to prevent any cavilling witli the details of an analysis of thig mosL 
disgraceful capitulation. 

Tiiere is one argument urged by the Examiner, amongst others, in de- 
fence of the treaty, which it may be worth while to notice. It is said that 
we must either have agreed to this settlement, or have declared war. This 
is not (rue. There was nothing for us to declare war about. We had the 
territory in our possession and custody. We had only to keep it till an equita- 
ble arrangement should be made either by the decision of a new arbiter, or 
by direct negotiation, and there could be no possible motive why we should 
declare war. No State declares war for the purpose of keeping what it has, 
unless that which it has, and wishes to keep, is attacked by another power. 

The suppressed meaning, then, of those who use that argument, is, that 
the United States would have declared war, or have made war against us, if 
we had not voluntarily (if voluntarily it can be called) surrendered to iheni 
the territory which they wanted to have. Therefore, according to those who 
liius defend the treaty, it was a surrender to another power of territory which 
we had in our possession, and a surrender made to avoid hostility and 
attack with which we were threatened by that power, if we did not ffive 
them what they wanted. If the treaty by which such a surrender has been 
made is not " a capitulation ,^^ there is no meaning in the word. 

That fear, however, which drove these Ministers and their negotiator to 
this hasty surrender was quite unfounded. We have already fully shown 
that iho United States would 7iot have involved the two countries in war, 
for an object in which the greater part of those states had no interest what- 
ever. As to the loud and noisy lone of the people of Maine, and of some 
of the American newspapers on this matter — it was bluster and nothing 
else. 

The account, published yesterday, of the dinner to Lord Ashburton at 
New York, is an appropriate sequel to the scene at Boston. It is difficult to 
conceive any thing more painful to the feelings of a real Englishman, filling 
the post then occupied by Lord Ashburton, and having just concluded such 
a treaty, than the uncontrollable burst of triumph and exultation which 
broke forth from the Americans on that occasion. Even had the negotiator 
before that evening persuaded himself that he had concluded a treaty fair 
between the two countries, he must have retired from that feast with a lieart 
aching with the secret conviction that the interests of America had triumph- 
ed in his negotiation over those of England. A true Englishman would 
iave passed a sleepless night after witnessing such a scene. Lord Ashbur- 
ton, no doubt, had refreshing dreams of the future prosperity and greatness 
to which he had helped the United States to advance. 

The noble negotiator did not, in his own speech, go quite so far as he had 
•done at Boston ; though he could not help again exiddng over the loss which 
England sustained by the severment of the United States, and reverting 
again to that " old cradle of liberty," Boston. But after praising Mr. Jay for 
liaving maintained, by a negotiation between England and the United States, 
the independence of the latter, Lord Ashburton observed that he might say 
without vanity " that he loo had done the state some service." His lord- 
ship's fellow citizens to whom the "service " was rendered acknowledged 
the boast with " loud and long continued cheering," in the course of which 

ijor Downing was heard vociferating "Bravo, bravo ! " 

Then followed (he most inflated panegy^rics upon Mr. Webster, wlio was 



25 

praised for having " nobly fulfilled the trust" which his country had reposed 
in him, and for having displayed in the negotiation ''gigantic intellect and 
nohle patriotism, ^^ and for having accomplished, by his power and skill, a 
result " which the whole comitry would applaud ;^^ he had sustained, it was 
said, his diplomatic burden in a glorious manner, and the Americans would 
have reason to congratulate themselves through all times at what he had 
achieved. All these expressions of opinion were followed by " great cheer- 
ing," " tremendous cheering," from the American company present. 

These high flown exultations at Mr. Webster's diplomatic triumpii over 
Lord Ashburton must have sounded grating upon the ears of the mystified 
negotiator, who must have now inwardly felt how different would be the 
terms in which his own conduct in this transaction would be spoken of on 
this side of the Atlantic. But his lordship was to be the victim for that day's 
sacrifice, and he was to be adorned with some few chaplets also. High praise 
is accordingly bestowed upon his '' simplicity,'' and his " earnest desire to 
get rid of every difficulty " which the American negotiator had successively 
opposed to a conclusion of the arrangement. With these encomiums, no 
doubt, our negotiator was pleased. They were but too well deserved. His 
friends then proceeded to soothe his lordship's vanity, which might have been 
mortified by the coldness of their praises of him as compared with their en- 
thusiastic eulogies on Mr. Webster. They not only told him that tlie treaty 
he had signed had preserved peace between England and the United States 
by rendering it unnecessary for the United States to make war against Eng- 
land, since England had, in the most gentlemanlike and sensible manner, 
given up every thing which the United States wanted ; but tliey assured 
him that this treaty had brought about "apolitical millenium," that it was 
to produce "universal peace," and that the treaty was '• a mantle which would 
cover the whole human family," and secure " the peace of the woild." To 
be sure the poor negotiator must have found that even — 

" ATedto tkfonle leporum 
Surgit amari aliqidd, quod in ipsisfloribm avgat." * 

For the American speakers plainly intimated that Lord Ashburton had been 
made a regular dove of in the negotiation. They reminded him of the Ber- 
lin and Milan decrees against British commerce ; they told him tliat where- 
ever the British flag is seen on any seas, there the American ensign 
would float " triumphajdly " at its side ; they took care he should not for- 
get that France had assisted America in her contests with England ; and 
above all, they charged him to remember that there were still many othgr 
questions unsettled between the two countries, and he was admonished that 
the United States would expect that those questions should all be '•• settled 
in the same spirit in which the recent treaty had been framed " — that is t© 
say, by the complete submission of England ; and he was told, upon such 
a condition, that a long and durable peace between the two count lies could 
be looked for. This last admonition, indeed, came from a Mr. Palmer, who 
called himself a British merchant. If he really is one, his speech shows to 
how low a tone the conduct of the British Government in this transaction 
has brought down the feelings of British residents in the United States. But 
it is to be hoped that Mr. Palmer only meant that he is an American citi- 
zen trading with England. Mr. Morris, the Mayor of New York, how 
ever, did not choose that this salutary warning should rest merely upon Mr. 
Palmer's oration, and he renewed the intimation in very distinct (erms him- 
self. 



^6 

The whole of the (ransaction, negotiation— treaty, dinners and speeches 
jncluded— must be deeply mortifying to every Englishman, who has the 
honor and interest of his country at heart, and must convince the world 
that the English Government have yielded to bluster and intimidation, and 
have been driven by their fears, or by a mistaken view of their own tempo- 
rary convenience, to be unfaithful to the trust which their Sovereign had re 
posed in their hands. 



Sej3ie7}iber 30, I8i2. 

We liave already shown that Lord Ashburton's capitulation has been in 
us great features needless and an injurious surrender to the United States of 
British right? and inteiests; that it "has yielded up a territory consisting of 
about seven thousand square miles, to which the right of England had been 
recently established, and that it has given to the United States additional 
means of attack against our North American provinces in case of war. But 
if the smaller details of the treaty are examined, it will be seen that they 
are all framed " in the same spirit,'' to use tlie phrase of the New York 
dinner, namely, in the spirit of entire submission, in every respect, to Ameri- 
can pretensions and encroachments ; for, not only have all points on which 
the construction of the treaty of 1783 had been disputed been given up to 
die United States, but a wanton concession has been made to them on a 
point with regard to which the treaty of 1TS3 was precise and unquestioned. 
The treaty of 1783 says that part of the boundary is to consist of a line 
to be drawn due north from the source of the river St. Croix, and that this 
Ime is to be continued up to the highlands described in the treaty. In the 
years 1SI7 and 1818 surveyors were employed on both sides to' draw this 
line from that point which the two Governments had bound themselves by 
the treaty of 1798 to consider as the source of the St. Croix. These com- 
rnissiorters, however, did not profess that the line which they partly marked 
out was to be the final boundary, nor was it ever till now acknowledged to be 
*uch by the British and American Governments. It was always described as 
being iIiaL which it really was, namely, an " exploratory north line;" a line 
cut through the matted wilderness and forest to pave the way for a more ac- 
curate line to be traced out afterwards. Accordingly, as this line wasunder- 
aiood not to be a final one, the English surveyors were careless in tracing it ; 
but noi so the American surveyors, who seem to have outwitted their Eng- 
lish coHcagues as much as Mr. Webster has outwitted Lord Ashburton. At 
every prolongation of the line, from station to station of observation, the 
American surveyors kept edging away to the eastward instead of going due 
iiorth ■, after a certain distance, it is "believed the English surveyors went 
away and left the Americans to finish the work : and the result is, that this 
" exploratory north line " runs to the eastward of the north, and at its inter 
section with the St. John, is at a considerable distance from the true meridian 
of the head of the St. Croix. This must have been known to the British 
Government and to Lord Ashburton — at all events, it ought to have been 
known to then]. Now in the late treaty, Lord Ashburton, instead of adher- 
ing to the words of the treaty of 1783, which say that the line is to be drawn 
due north from the source of the St, Croix, adopts instead of such a line the 
exploratory line traced out by tlie survevors in 1817 and 1818, which has 



27 

been proved by subsequent observations to be an unfair and considerable eri- 
croachment upon (he territory of New Brunswick. 

The treaty of 1783 says that the boundary line is to be drawn along the 
highlands down to the norlhweslernmost head of the Connecticut river, and 
a difference arose between the two Governmenls which that head was. The 
Briti,5h Government contended that it was (he head of that river which bears 
the name of the Connecticut from its source, and which traverses a lake call- 
ed the Connecticut Lake; while the American Government insisted that it 
was the head of a small tributary stream which falls inJo the Connecticut 
some way below Connecticut Lake, and which has never been called the 
Connecticut river, but bears the name of " Hall's Stream." Tlie head of 
" Hall's Stream " is no more the head of the Connecticut, than the head of 
the Wey or the Colne are the head of the Thames. The King of Holland 
decided this question in our favor, and the late commissioners, Captain 
Broughton and Mr. Featherslonhaugh, report that the River Connecticut, 
at the point where Hall's Stream falls into it, is so much the largest of the 
two that not a doubt can exist as to which is the main river, and which the 
tributary stream. But the admission of the head of Hall's Stream, as the 
aorthwesternmost head of the Connecticut, gives to the United States a 
tract of about 15 miles in length and hreadih, which they would not get, if 
the true head of the river were adopted ; and, therefore^ it can be no matter 
for surprise, that Lord Ashburton has adopted in his treaty the head of Hall's 
iStream, as the head of the Connecticut. 

The treaty of 1783 says that the boundary shall run from the head of 
the Connecticut down the middle of that river to the point where the river 
intersects die 45th parallel of north latitude, and from that point it shall run 
along that parallel till that parallel cuts the St. Lawrence river. Novi", this 
parallel of latitude was the old boundary between New England and Cana- 
da before the American insurrection, and it had been roughly and imper- 
fectlv laid down on the ground by unskilful surveyors of that time. It was 
found, however, of late years, by a survey made by the astronomers em- 
ployed for that puipose by (he British and "United States Governments, that 
the old line so run was very incorrect ; and that in some places, and more 
especially at the northern end of Lake Champlain it encroached considera- 
bly upon the Bridsh territory ; and that the true parallel was some way to 
the south of the line laid down by those old suiveyors. Tiie consequence 
of this discovery was, (hat Rouse's Point, a strong fortified position at the 
northern end of liake Champlain, and which commands the entrance into 
that lake from (he river Richelieu, was found to be within (he British terri- 
tory, instead of being, as before supposed, within the Uni(ed States' territory. 

Now, the United'Slates Government shall be left to speak as to the im- 
portance of this position in the event of war between die United States and 
England. 

On the 15th of May, 1840, there was laid before Congress an official re- 
port from (he Government upon the " National Defences and National boun- 
daries." This report treats of Lake Champlain, which it says is disringuish- 
ed from Lakes Ontario, Erie, Huron, and Superior, by this : that those last- 
mentioned lakes, lying horizontally between (he United States and the Brit- 
ish provinces, are boundaries, while Lake Champlain lies perpendiculariy to 
the frontier and goes down to the Hudson within (he United States, and 
communicates with the St. Lawrence within the British provinces. 

" This," says the report, " is undoubtedly the avenue by which the British 
possessions can he most effectually assailed; while, at (he same tiniej it 



28 

would afford to the enemy possessing a naval ascendancy equal facilities foi 
bringing the war within our own borders, j/" left unjortijiedy 

The report goes on to show how " the military occupation of tluc outlet of 
Lake Champlain ■ ' would enable the United States to get to Montreal or 
Q.uebec, which the report states to be '•' the two great objects of attack ;'' but 
it says that " these consequences are so obvious that it must not be supposed 
that they are i\oi perfectly understood by our neighbors across the border." 

Lord Ashburlon, by adopting at the 45th parallel of north latitude tlie old 
line drawn by Valentine and Collins, must have known that he was thereby 
giving up to the Americans Rouse's Point and " the military occupation of 
the outlet of Lake Champlain;" and it cannot be supposed that after '•' the 
consequence " of that military occupation had been so frankly proclaimed 
and so recently by the United States Government, those consequences could 
have been otherwise ihan '^ perfectly understood^'' by ihc British Govern- 
ment and its negotiator. 

The more the recent treaty is examined, the less possible it is to under- 
stand why our Government should have thought it necessary to send a special 
mission to Washington in order to conclude it. All they had to do was to 
request Mr. Everett to tell Mr. Webster to send him, ready written out, the 
best terms which the President might be willing to gratu the Britioli Gov- 
ernment, and those terms might have been subscribed to quietly in Downing- 
street as well as in Washington, without all the expense and parade of a 
special mission, and without putting Lord Ashburton, at his advanced age, 
to the trouble and inconvenience of two passages across the Atlantic, and the 
sweltering of a ^Vashington siin)mer. 

It is, perhaps, unfortunate for Great Britain liiat the Government did not 
adopt this course; for the American (government, if left to itself, and judg- 
ing from its former experience of British Cabinets, would probably not have 
hoped for such urdimited coxicessions, and might ha\ e sent over for the sig- 
nature of the British (jovernment conditions not quite so disadvantageous in 
every respect to England. 



October 3, 1842. 

We should be very willinorto allow the Examiner's defence of the Ashbur- 
lon capitulation to rest upon what we have already said, but there are one 
or two points in hs rejoinder of Saturday which call for some notice. 

Our contemporary tlistinctly denies that the two reports of the commis- 
sioners sent by the last Government to survey the disputed territory do 
change the state of the controversy between the United States and England, 
or remove the obstacles which the British Government on former occasions 
admitted to exist, to prevent a strict literal execution of the treaty of 1783. 
The grounds on which the Bxamiticr rests this denial are two : first, that 
the commissioners say that the treaty of 1783 cannot be strictly and fully ex- 
ecuted, unless the point of departure for the due north line is removed west- 
ward from the spot which in 1798 the two Governments agreed to consider 
as the northwesternmost head of the St. Croix, and unless that point of de- 
parture is placed at the (rue head of the St. Croix ; and secondly, that, as the 
Examiner alleges, the commissioners say that they cannot find any high- 
ands which corre'-'^ond with the words of the treaty. 



29 

Now on both these poinls the Examiner is mistaken. The first of these 
iwo alleged grounds is indeed ahiiosl a play upon words. The commission- 
ers ?ay, and clearly prove, that the point of departure agreed tjpon in 1798, 
for the comnjencement of the due north line is not the true head of the St. 
Croix ; and as the treaty of 1783 says that this line is to begin from " the 
source of the St. Croi.x," it is plain that the treaty of 1783 cannot be strictly 
and fully executed, unless the point of departure is carried back to the real 
source of that river. But this stipulation of the treaty of 1783 was modified 
by the aofreement of 1798 ; and the two Governments then virtually agreed 
that in that respect they would not strictly execute that treaty, or at least, 
that rhey would consider the fixing of the spot marked by a moniunenl as 
the point of departure, to be a sufficient fulfilmentof the treaty of 1783. But 
the £'xamj/?er builds upon this a superstructureof inference, which no part of 
the report of the commissioners wairants; and he implies, that because the 
comniLssioners say that that part of the treaty of 1783 which relates to 
the point of departure cannot be strictly fulfilled by a due north line drawn 
from the point agreed upon in 179S, therefore {he remaining parts of the 
treaty of 1783, which describe the rest of the boimdary line down the high- 
lands to the head of the Connecticut, cannot be carried into execution. The 
commissioners have neither said nor implied any such thing, but have said 
just the contrary ; for they distinctly say, and clearly prove, that the due 
north line drawn from the spot erroneously agreed upon in 1798 as the 
source of the St. Croix, does come to highlands, which do correspond with 
the words of the treaty of 1783 ; and that it comes to those highlands before 
it reaches the St. John, and that consequently the proper boundary line 
ought to run to the south of the St. John, leaving the whole of that river 
within British territory. Nothing can be more precise and positive than the 
report of Colonel Mudge and Mr. Featherstonhaugh on this point, for they 
say, as the conclusion and summary of their report — 

" We report that ice have found a line of highlands, agreeing with the 
language of the second article of the treaty of 1783, extending from the 
northwestcrnmost head of the Connecticut river to the sources of the Chau- 
diere, and passing from thence in a northwesterly direction south of the 
Roostack (and therefore south of the St. John), to the Bay of Chaleurs. The 
course of that line is traced out on the map A accompanying our report.^' 

Here, then, fall to the ground at once the arguments by which the writer 
in the Examiner endeavored to pi op up his asserrion that the report or re- 
ports of the commissioners had not changed the state of the controversy, and 
it is to be observed that he omits any mention of the disproof of the Ameri- 
can claim which has been established by the commissioners, who have shown 
!iiat [he line of hills claimed by the United States of the bounding highlands, 
do not go within twenty or thirty miles of the head of the Connecticut river, 
to which the treaty of 1783 requires that they should run. 

But in truth, the Americans have not always been insensible to the weak- 
ness of their case, even before the recent surveys; for Mr. Gallatin, writing 
in December, 1814, to Mr. Monroe, about this disputed territory, speaks of it 
thus : — 

"That northern territory (meaning the disputed territory north of Maine) 
i.g of no importance to us, and belongs to the United States and not to Mas- 
sachusetts (of which Maine formed a part), irhich has not the shadow of a 
claim to any land north of 45 degrees to the eastward of the Penobscot riv- 
i^r, oj you may cosily conviiicc yourself of by referring to her chvrtersy 



30 

With regard to the right conceded to the people of Maine to navigaie the 
St. John to its month through British territory, the Examiner ahandons 
his doctrine that such a right could have been claimed by the Americans on 
the ground of international law ; and, indeed, it would have been difficult for 
him to have quoted any writer on the Law of Nations to support such a doc- 
trine. He now says that it might have been claimed upon the ground of 
precedent, and by reference to several treaties between different Stalei^, by 
which such a right has been granted by one State to the subjects or citizens 
of another. This argument is necessarily an abandonment of the former 
one, because rights which rest upon international law do not require treaty 
stipulations for their enjoyment. Now the Chronicle never denied that the 
concession of such a right to the people of Maine might be a fit subject for 
negotiation between England and the United States, and if the Americans 
could have offered us a fair equivalent for it, we might have granted the 
right, but it is not possible to admit that we obtained a fair equivalent for the 
concession, when that equivalent was, as appears by the Ashburton treaty, 
the permission given us by the Americans to retain about a third of a ponion 
of our own territory. 

It is not only those persons who find fault with this Ashburton capitulation 
that object to the principle and effects of this concession ; we are not without 
American authority on this point also. For Mr. Russell, the American min- 
ister at Paris, in a despatch to Mr. Adams, in February, 1815, with reference 
to a Jemand then made by Great Britain, for a right to navigate the Missis- 
sippi to its mouth, through the United States territory, says, "the freedom 
of the Mississippi, however, is not to be estimated by the mere legitimate use 
that would be made of it. The unrestrained and undefined access which 
would have been inferred from the article which we" (that is the Ameiican 
commissioners in Paris,) " proposed, would have placed in the haiids of 
Great Britain and her subjects all the facilities of communication with our 
citizens, and with the Indian inhabitants. It is not in the nature of things 
that these facilities should not have been used for unrighteous purposes. A 
Tast field for contraband and for intrigue would have been laid open, and our 
western territories would have swarmed with British smugglers and British 
emissaries." 

But we have still another authority upon this point, which we suspect will 
have more weight with the jurist of the Examiner than any which either he 
or we have yet referred — we mean the noble negotiator, Lord Ashburton him- 
self. The intelligence which arrived last night from America brings tlie 
" correspondence" between the noble lord and Mr. Webster ; and as we glance 
through it (as much as we can do at the late hour we receive it) such passa- 
ges as these catch our eye : — 

" The right to navigate the St. John's is considered by my government as 
a very important concess^io7i" . . . "I am empowered to allow this 
privilege only in the event of a settlement of the boundary terms." . . . 
" It has been repeatedly solicited and invariably refused^ and no Minister 
of Great Britaiii has before beeii permitted to connect this concession with 
the settlement oi the boundary. ^^ ..." Joint rights in the same waters 
and hdshoxs muU be a fruitful source of dissension.^' Why Lord Ashbur- 
ton has been a great deal too exacting for the Examiner ! 

The Exatniner is a friend of peace with America ; so are we all. But the 
question at issue is, whether timid concession to menace is the best way of pre- 
serving peace ill the long run. W~e think it not. Man is by nature aggres- 



31 

sive and encroaching, and the history of the hiunan race is the history of the 
aggressions of the strong upon the weak — of the bold and determined over 
the timid and irresolute. The French proverb says, " Qui sefait brebis, le 
loup le mange.'''' Now there is certainly no danger at present of our being 
«at up by the United States, but it must be acknowledged (hat in (his recent 
negotiation we have been thoroughly7?eece</. 



K.J 



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